Last week I was nostalgic about the McDonald's restaurant in Kokomo where I began working in 1974 and where Julia and I met.  I saw on Facebook it was being demolished.  That was all too true.  I was taken aback and realized I'm getting old.  But hope does indeed spring eternal.  After talking to my very good friend Dave Voris I learned the razing of that corner of my memory is no reason for despair.  McDonald's is building a new store on that sight.  The Golden Arches are still there and the sign reads: "Here we grow again!"  Hip, hip, hooray!  There are all kinds of surprises in life.  The place of so many fond memories is being replaced with a new facility.  It will not quite be the same.  But it will continue to be a welcomed sight as Julia and I drive in and remember over four decades of happiness.  Would that there were places like that somewhere for all of us.

Alas, I have reached the age where significant places from my past are gone.  The Methodist church where my parents were married and I was baptized is in ruins.  My first grade school is gone.  Where I played little league baseball is an empty grass covered field.  This morning I learned the McDonalds restaurant at Markland Avenue and US Highway 31 in Kokomo has been demolished.  It's where I began working at $1.70 an hour.  That was the minimum wage in 1974.  It's where I met Julia.  We stopped there on the afternoon of our wedding, still dressed in tux and gown and ordered a Coke.  Plenty of life passes by in forty years.  It was a stopping off place going through Kokomo for four decades.  It's gone.  I have no idea what will occupy that corner of the world.  It won't be the same and it doesn't need to be.  Life moves on.  While I'm sad it's gone, I'm glad to be around to see it go.  It's a far sight better than the other way around.  I consider myself blessed.

The Day of Pentecost marks the Church's birthday.  It is the day when the power of the Holy Spirit descended upon the disciples and thousands of others.  It marks the 50th day from Jesus' resurrection.  The coming of the Holy Spirit was Jesus' promise and we were told to wait for it.  When that power came, it would enable the Church to do what Jesus charged it to do: bear witness to his suffering, death, and resurrection, beginning with Jerusalem, than Judea, Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.  That is some kind of power to be given to mere humans.  That gift of the Holy Spirit was for the Church.  Even 20 centuries later that power still blesses the Church and its charge is the same: bear witness to Jesus.  Bear witness in every nook and cranny of creation.  Bear witness with song and word and deed.  Bear witness with joy and hope and love.  Bear witness.  Wear red this coming Pentecost Sunday.  Wear red as a sign of your bearing witness to the power of the Holy Spirit in your own heart.  Wear red as a sign the power of the Holy Spirit is alive and well at Calvary and in Syracuse.  Pray your red-wearing-witness is celebrated even in the highest heaven.  Who knows?  It might change the world.

A familiar song from a generation or so ago reminded us "Love and marriage go together like a horse and carriage...you can't have one without the other."  Indeed, some things do go together.  Salt and pepper, soup and salad, lock and key, milk and honey.  You can name other pairs which go together.  I discovered this week a pair of things that surprised me as being linguistically related.  In the Hebrew language "bread" and "war' come from the same root word.  Even the vowels are identical.  I would never have suspected such a connection.  That means, as you read the Hebrew text, coming upon that word, you have to make a decision about the proper translation.  Is the context about food or war?  What if the context is about going to war for bread?  History is riddled with such conflicts.  I wonder if there ever came a time when bread was so bountiful, there would be no more war?  Wouldn't that be a grand thing?  Perhaps if that bountiful time were higher on our prayer lists, war and hunger might abate and our many lands would know peace?